Anybody “12-16 clicks” from full stiff?

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by Purist

And a side note... I have made a point of only taking performance advice from people who have some trophies in their cabinet.

I'm not sure taking advice from my aunt, who has trophies for cake baking, would help you tune your dampers.

[Purist]

I came second in a local cake competition once. There were two entries. I was robbed.

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[Racecomp Engineering]

Oh I could write a lot about this...and probably will at some point for our theapexfiles instagram page.

But real quick. Yes the type/brand of coilover matters, but not just because of what the range of valving looks like, but how the actual adjustment happens.

Sometimes you have an adjuster that primarily affects low shaft speed damping. This is a bleed adjuster. This'll give you a good control over handling and response if used correctly. Usually less of an affect on ride quality, but still some effect depending on other factors.

Other times, you'll have a shim preload or dish adjuster. This has some effect throughout low, medium, and high shaft speeds. On a shock dyno chart, it's doesn't affect the shape of the curve so much as the amount of force needed for the damper to "blow off" and the "knee" which kind of moves everything up or down.

*there are other, fancier types of adjusters, but most of the time we're dealing with either a bleed or a preload adjuster

There are advantages and disadvantages to both types. Sometimes you'll have 1 adjuster that affects both compression and rebound, other times it'll be 1 adjuster that just affects rebound.

It is very helpful to know what you are adjusting! For example, if you adjust your shocks to full stiff to reduce bottoming but your adjuster only affects rebound....you're making things worse, not better.

Also, a lot of people see it as a good thing when a damper has a huge range of adjustment. Soft is really soft and stiff is really stiff. IMO whether that's good or not depends on how that range is achieved.

I see a lot of "digressive" coilovers with a lot of range, but they actually lack much low speed damping unless they're set to very stiff settings...at which point they're outrageously stiff for low and mid-speed. This tends to happen with a LOT of built in shim preload (without an adjuster) and then a bleed adjuster. The dyno chart might look good on paper at full stiff, until you look at the actual forces.

So, lots of nuance. Shocks are more complicated than just "soft" and "stiff".

- Andrew

[Racecomp Engineering]

Bleed adjuster example:


Preload/dish adjuster example:


- Andrew

[Westen86]

Counter Space Garage and Racecomp Engineering are the boulders that hold this website together. You guys post coherent responses all over the forum. Thank you for what you do. If I could afford your parts, I would have bought enough to be a poster car for you guys.